Lost In Translation (And French Supermarkets)
“”Effet immédiat”, oui c’est exactement ce qu’il me faut” I declared
“immediate effect, that’s exactly what I need”
I was browsing our local pharmacy, trying to find something (anything, dear Mother-Of-God) that would stop the dreaded harvest chiggers (Aoûtats) that had been happily munching their way across my stomach and inner thighs for the last few days. The sunflower harvest had just started, and I’d already managed to accumulate around 50 splotchy, red bites that were driving me absolutely crazy-itchy insane. Seriously, harvest chiggers are the worst…
“J’ai même besoin de quelque chose qui marche en arrière” I added, chuckling at my fine attempt at humor
“I even need something that works in reverse”….or at least that’s what I was trying to say
This was met with dead silence, much like an aspiring echo in the vacuum of space, followed by a concerned frown on the brow of the pharmacist. Ah yes, a classic example of yet another miss-fired Nina joke, a crash and burn on the black-ice of French language and cultural norms. Alas, this happens to me often….
So I did as I usually do. I smiled vapidly, mumbled something unintelligible (thus giving the impression I was actually trying to say something entirely different) and then swept my Danish-American butt as nonchalantly and quickly as possible out of there.
I may have to avoid the pharmacy for a few years….
They say humor is the last step of any foreign language, a leap that’s only possible when you’ve truly mastered a tongue. But it’s also much more than that. Humor is rooted in the culture of a place, the politics of it, the little nuances that make a language like French, well…truly French. Often it doesn’t translate in any direct way, at least not until you understand what’s behind it. Which is probably why I still struggle to make a joke.
A wonderful example of this is the French saying “il a fait le minimum syndical” (= he did the minimum required by the syndicate….in other words, he did he absolute bare minimum he could). It’s hilarious in French because everyone knows that French bureaucracy is crazy with reams of paperwork and rules that cover just about every conceivable aspect of life. So, if you really can’t be arsed to make an effort, you simply follow the exact written rule and literally don’t do an ounce of work more.
See….it’s funny once you get it…
And thus it is with many things in a foreign country. It takes time to get to know a place, to understand how everything functions, to recognize the subtleties and yeah….to make jokes. So I thought it would be interesting to share with you a few of the cultural differences we’ve experienced since we started living in France, starting with grocery stores. Food is always a good place to start, no?
Curiosities Of French Grocery Shopping
One of the first ways you get to know a place is when you go to the store to buy stuff.
In many ways, French grocery stores are not that different from US ones. They’re smaller perhaps (for the most part, although we do get some big “hypermarket” stores in France), and they pretty much stock all your standard grocery stuff….meats, veggies, packaged foods etc. But there are also few things that are distinctly different….
No Coin, No Cart: An interesting oddity (at least for us Americans) is that all the grocery carts in France are locked together, and you need a €1 coin (or a plastic token of around the same size) to access one. It’s a rather ingenious way to ensure your customers always bring back their carts, but it’s also a royal pain in the derrière if you happen to have forgotten your change. We got caught out by this one a few times in the beginning, but have now learned to carry tokens in both the car & RV.
No bags, No bagging: Coming from the US, the whole self-bagging thing was a bit of a culture shock to begin with, and led to quite a few rather hilarious (in retrospect) encounters. Basically I would stand at the check-out line waiting impatiently for someone to bag my groceries, while the check-out lady (or lad) would wait equally impatiently for me to get started. We would stare at each other, in the French-grocery-store-equivalent of a Mexican stand-off for hours (OK, maybe it was minutes) before I finally realized what I’d done. Darn foreigner….Interestingly enough, now that I’ve been living here a while I don’t miss or carry bags anymore at all. I simply cart all our items directly to the car where we’ve got two large collapsible CleverMade plastic crates to load them into. Then, once I get home, I just bring in the crates inside to unload. Way less hassle and zero bag waste.
Pink Toilet Paper Is A Thing: yes literally PINK. Apparently it has something to do with being “skin-colored” and thus somehow more pleasant to use, although I’ve only ever personally attained that particular shade of lobster when I’ve accidentally exposed my blindingly-white Scandinavian belly to the sun for a few too many hours. Either way, I do not find it appealing. Still, it’s considered totally normal, and very French.
Out of Season, Out Of Stock: another rather interesting abnormality in France is that stock in the store changes as the seasons change. This is not too different from what happens elsewhere in the world, just that it’s much more dramatic and abrupt here. For example, once summer ends and tomato season drops off, you can no longer buy mozzarella….like at ALL. I mean, why would you need to?? So sometime in October the entire mozarella-shelf, all 4 levels of it, simply vanishes only to re-appear again magically in the Spring. Lots of other ingredients flow in and out of the store like this, such as fruits, veggies and various other seasonal items. But the mozzarella thing, that took me a while to get used to.
There’s also little oddities that took me by surprise, like the fact that broth is literally impossible to buy here. French stores offer 30 different cartons of soups & veggies for sale, but not one single version of basic broth (you have to use “fond” or cubes instead).
And lastly, I find it uniquely curious that you cannot, just cannot buy any kind of notebook with regular old parallel lines in it. The pages are all either filled with small cubes, or with what seems like a senseless excess criss-cross of teeny checkers.
WHY?? How do you even write in these things???
And The Good Things
And then there’s the good stuff, the things that may have seemed odd or excessive at first, but that we’ve come to truly appreciate….
Tarte Bases and Lardons: There’s not a single store in France that doesn’t offer a full shelf of lardons (bacon bits, basically) and ready-made tart bases. It’s the “pizza” of France, the one meal anyone can make, anytime with minimal effort, and everyone does. Just roast the bacon bits, chuck ’em in the tart base with some eggs & cream, maybe some veggies (or really anything else you want), bake it for 30 mins and Bob’s Your Uncle (or perhaps Pierre is your Ami?). Either way, it didn’t take us long to appreciate how easy and tasty this routine is, so much so that we now make a tart at least once a week.
Plus, it turns out tart ingredients are predictive too. When the whole COVID-19 thing started blowing up back in March, one of the first shelves to empty out at our local store was the lardons. That’s when I knew sh*t was getting real…..
Wine & Cheese Galore: I’d always imagined that the wine & cheese selection in France would be incredible, and indeed it is even in the smallest of stores. You won’t find a ton of foreign stuff in these aisles, but then again, why would you need to? There are over 1000 distinct types of French cheese, and around 27,000 wineries, more than enough for several lifetimes of gourmandise.
Plus every year in fall, the stores run a “Foire Au Vin” where they offer cases of wine at ridiculously discounted prices. So for €2 you can get a totally drinkable daily wine, or you can spend €5 for something a better. And if you really want to get fancy you can splurge and get an excellent one for €10. What’s not to love?????
Apéro Stuff: The French version of “Happy Hour” is Apéro, but it’s also much than that. Apéro is what you invite your French neighbors over for when you want a casual get-together, and it’s a whole evening of stuff with various finger foods, wine, playing some kind of game (e.g. Pétanque), hanging out, chatting. Everyone does it, everyone enjoys it, and the grocery stores are happy to assist it. So, you can find all kinds of interesting apéro-related foodstuffs in the local store from drinks to cheeses, chips, nuts, mixes and apéro-you-name-it-more. It’s a fine tradition and I totally dig it.
Oh, and perhaps my favorite little French grocery store curiosity? The bread slicing machine in the bread section of almost every store. Yes, this fabulous little device allows you to buy fresh, crusty straight-out-of-the-oven warm French bread and bring it home perfectly sliced thanks to the flick of a switch. Genius….
Plus Of Course Bureaucracy
I don’t know if I’ll ever really get used to the amount of paperwork that needs to be done in France. I know it’s part and parcel of living here, but even locals (and yes I’ve asked around) consider it ridiculous and excessive.
This week we had two fine examples….
On Monday I got a notice in my online Ameli account that my Carte Vitale (my French health care card) was undergoing a yearly review. This is apparently totally normal (or so I found out) albeit it does happen somewhat randomly, and it’s done to ensure I’m still resident in France and thus still entitled to the card. OK fine. All I had to do was complete a 3-page form, print out 12 months (!!!) of bank & savings statements, provide proof of residence, a copy of my last French tax return, and a few other bits and bobs. Around 100 pages later, I had the required inch-worth of paperwork, which I lugged to the post office and posted on Thursday. Let’s hope it’s enough…..
And the septic….oh, the septic. We got an approval letter from SMDEA/SPANC this week, or rather we thought it was an approval letter. In our giddiness at receiving the last (hahaha) official document we needed to put the bleeding septic tank in the ground, we failed to read the fine-print which said that although we are “conforme” (meaning our installation is in essence OK), we need another approval before work can actually begin. Arrrrrghhhhhhhhh!
This final, final (????) approval is from the la communauté de communes du Volvestre, an organization I had no idea existed and which was never mentioned in any of the multitude of paperwork & forms we filled out. But apparently they own the ditch into which the treated water from the septic tank will flow, and thus their official stamp is needed. So, we’re hopping backwards once again, stuck in the never-ending rain-dance of French paperwork. And meanwhile, our old septic tank flows on…..
And Finally In The News
I’ll finish up with couple of fun news items, just to take your (our) mind off our septic situation, and the ever-present news of rising COVID-19 numbers all over France.
Topless sunbathing: French government defends right to bare torsos -> French police were chastised for telling topless sunbathers to cover up in the SW of France. As a Scandinavian, I can only applaud this. Fly free, be bare, my friends. Vive la France…
French nudist resort reports ‘worrying’ level of COVID-19 cases -> It seems even the nudists are not immune to our rising COVID-19 inflection numbers, despite the fact that they took precautions to ensure everyone was wearing a mask. I dunno, I just felt I had to share that mental image….
Oh and that grain experiment I teased you with in last post? Not quite ready yet….we just need a few more steps before I can be write about it, which I guess is rather French of me. Maybe I am becoming a local, after all.
So my dear readers, in your many travels, have you found interesting and unusual things in the various supermarkets you’ve visited? Stuff you loved? Stuff that seemed crazy? DO tell and share below!
Philadelphia cream cheese!
Enjoyable post, thank you.
Ahhhh yes, cream cheese. Love that stuff. They don’t sell it here, but they have something kinda similar called “Kiri”. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s close. I’ve even made a very respectable cheesecake using it. Now bagels….that’s something I cannot get at all.
Nina
I thought I saw Philadelphia on that grocery shelf? With all the other cheeses on the far left?
I see the Philadelphia cream cheese in the picture, also!
Holy Moly, I’ve never seen it in our store before. But you are both RIGHT….it does say “Philadelphia” on those cartons on the left. Whaaaaaaat? This may be brand new (perhaps a new stock???), so I’m going to have to go in and have a look again. So glad you both pointed it out!!
Nina
French Ruled paper is called Séyès. Look it up. It’s all about learning to write cursive in French schools.
THANK YOU for that!!!! The checkered book thing has been driving me crazy. It’s nice to have an explanation for it. I have to admit the French write cursive most beautifully…nothing like the messy scribbles i make. That’s something they really teach well in schools here.
Nina
You’re always very entertaining! A bright spot in my email list . . . I’ve been to lots of grocery stores all over the USA as a traveler in my campervan, and since I’m non-gluten, I’ve developed a taste for corn tortillas to wrap sauteed cheese and kale, peanut butter, egg/bacon bits, etc. Every grocery store puts their corn tortillas in a different place! Some in the bread aisle, some in the Mexican aisle, some in the spaghetti/sauce aisle, some in the International aisle, some in a stand-alone cart near the deli . . . I walk all over the damn place!!! Poor little ole corn tortillas have an identity complex 🙁
Corn tortillas are wonderful. Forgot to mention it in the blog post, but our local store actually carries them (gluten free) in their Mexican section. Never imagined a local French rural grocery store would have tortillas, but they do. We usually have a “taco” night every few weeks.
Oh and I know what you mean about chasing them down. That’s one thing that always drove me a little nuts when we were traveling…each store is just a “little” different in where they stock everything, enough that it takes you waaaay longer than it should to shop.
Nina
Nina, my sympathies re. chiggers/red spider mites. Here’s something from a 2008 soakersforum.com conversation. I tracked down some of the snake powder at a local (Denver) Asian Market and it was like a miracle cure.
Best regards to all you guys & critters,
Jim
Well, my timely quote got eliminated. Trying again.
http://www.soakersforum.com
[The most popular was something found at a Chinese or Vietnamese apothecary. I don’t recall the exact name but it was something like “Urine of Seven Dragons” or “7 Snake Powder.”]
Hahahah…”Urine of Seven Dragons”. Why not. I’m ready to try anything at this point.
Nina
Ooooo… I so remember those chigger bites as a child. Always got them from running through the tall weeds. We we were always told to paint them with clear nail polish, the theory being that if you “suffocated” the center red dot, the itching would stop. It worked…sorta, but it took a couple days. The last time cured me from enjoying tall grasses cured me forever! That’s when I had over 50 bites around my middle, wherever the elastic in my underwear met my skin, and in ANY skin folds. itching insanity is a good term.
YES exactly!!! The little mites seem to bore (and bite) right at the elastic parts (trouser line, bra line) and ALL the skin folds. It’s insane! I’m washing clothes everyday now, simply to get rid of them. It’ll be over in a few weeks, but right now it’s just horrible.
Nina
Is it possibly Snake Brand Prickly Heat cooling powder? A friend in FL recommended it once for a reason I had. I got better before I got it but she swears by it.
Living in Germany back in the late eighties, it always amused me to find peanut butter, popcorn and marshmallows in the foreign food section of the supermarket. You brought back some good memories with this blog post.
YES!! That’s a good one. They have peanut butter in the stores here, usually in the foreign food section. However marshmallows and popcorn are harder to find…they are definitely “exotic” items LOL.
Nina
When we lived in Venice Italy peanut butter was impossible to find. When I went to the butcher to buy rabbit in the spring I was told it is out of season, they only offered it in the fall. This was true of other meats but I don’t remember which ones. The other thing I found odd in the beginning of living there was you could not touch, pick out your own fruit or veggies.
Now that IS interesting Jil. Here you can touch/choose your fruit & veg at the markets, at least you can in SW France. We only have a few stalls where we can’t choose ourselves (and that’s because of COVID-19….they changed when that happened).
Nina
Nudists in Masks–could be a movie…just sayin’
The title does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?
Nina
The only way I found to take of chiggers was to smother the little devils…clear finger nail polish on the chigger location will smother the buggers. It has worked for me.
That worked for me, too.
Very helpful…thank you!!
Nina
Hi there
Cannot tell you how much I enjoy your blog? Newsletter? Look so forward to reading every word.
We are seniors and full timers. I have followed your every step as you prepared to go to Europe. Your arrival. Your new rig. All your paperwork. Hoping one day we too could do the same things.
COVID has impacted many people’s plans. Ours too. We have remained safe and follow our countries guidelines. Seems to be working pretty well in Canada.
Being part of the vulnerable age group, am thinking our RV travel through Europe will have to be done through your adventures.
Your photos are wonderful. The country side, although parched right now, looks amazing!
Thank you for sharing your world with such articulation and clarity. Stay well. Stay safe.
More later…
Hopefully you get to enjoy that European dream earlier rather than later, although I do think almost everything planned this year is going to have to be delayed until 2021. Only a few more months left of 2020, so hang in there.
Nina
Nina, I have followed and loved your posts for many years. We had to stop RV’ing due to my husbands cancer. We are okay, but treasured our travels in 36 states.
Your comments about chiggers caught my attention and I share this with EVERYONE I can. If your bites are anything like the ones in the U.S., I have lots of experience with bites, especially chigger bites. If you can get into hot water (as hot as you can take without burning your skin), you will get relief once you get out. Hot showers with a shower wand directly on each bite helps. On and off during the day what I do is take a wet wash cloth and microwave it for up to 15 seconds (less if it’s too hot) and put it directly on each bite or area. It itches like crazy when the wash cloth is on your bites, but when you remove it, it reliefs the itch for hours as long as you do not scratch. If you do by mistake, repeat. I am 66 and wish I’d learned this 30 years ago. You can read here:
https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/hot-water-for-itchy-bug-bites
Enjoy your new life in France. Fondly, Karen
Excellent!!!!!!! Thank you so much for this. I’m trying it today.
Nina
Order Citricidal from Amazon and apply to bites. Careful around Polly as it would be toxic to animals in anything larger than a drop.
Greatly evocative and enjoyable post again! Although I am confused about the lined notebook trouble since two of my favourite ever lined notebooks came from a Paris market, but perhaps rural France only has time for writing down numbers and drawing schematics of septic tank placements in fields ‘)
I’ve never found French to have a sense of humour, except for mocking foreigners, but alas that’s a chat one cannot join in from the outside. French take themselves way too seriously, the best you can ever hope for is a confused frown (in my experience).
Fingers crossed for progress
Thanks for the tip. I will look it up.
And interesting about your Paris notebook. Perhaps it was a special kind of notebook? I just know that all the ones they sell in the supermarket here are either checkered or squared. The only place I’ve found to buy a lined one is at a specialty paper/stationary store.
Nina
Chiggers treatment in military style every morning to tablespoons a vinegar white vinegar not apple cider vinegar and then 1/3 tablespoon and a half glass of water about an hour later we never had any chiggers when we did maneuvers , nor did we get any ticks it was that way for at least 6 months and then moved. It’s quick it’s easy and cheap to do are you still about a month or so ahead of hunting season in the mountains.
Well goodness, I hadn’t heard of that trick. You actually drink the vinegar water right? I mean you don’t use it like a spray on your clothes? I’m definitely trying this!!
Nina
Well that was fun to read. I bet your first, second and third grocery expedition was lengthy. I know mine would be….just trying to decipher what a package is and what it has in it.
Oh yes, it took forever. And I kept having to translate all the time. It’s way easier now of course, as I pretty much have a standard list of stuff I buy. But sometimes I still do get stumped. It’s a learning process!
Nina
A very entertaining post Nina! Having grown up in the south I am totally familiar with chiggers–little tiny red demon critters! A long time ago someone told me to paint the bites with nail polish–it suffocates the critter and the itching stops. It WORKS! Just don’t use red nail polish–you might give poor Paul a fright!
You’re the 2nd or 3rd person to suggest nail polish. Definitely a winner treatment. I am trying it today.
Nina
I totally love reading about you and your family!! I started back in 2016, summer, when you were rocking in the states and we always just managed to miss you!! You were in Maine and we were on the way and missed you somewhere in the middle so I am sure you remember the card readers at the front of the grocery stores in the states starting with picking a language: in the South and West, it was a choice between French and English while in the snowy north near the Canadian border, it was Spanish and English?????!
You know I never even noticed that! How fascinating.
Nina
Chiggers! I had a post about that, and yes the non stop itch and scratching lasts for a month. I can relate Nina 🙂 and sympathize with you.
I got mine from just sitting down on the grass in Indiana. Since then I dont sit on the grass even here in the west. I used Calamine, but it only gave a temporary relief.
At least our septic tank was already under ground when we bought the house. The only requirement is a full inspection and flushing out the entire content. Having our own is new and we have to mindful now of what we dumped.
Yes, it’s literally is a MONTH of scratching. They seem to be a *little* better this year, compared to last year (or maybe I’m just being optimistic?), but they’re still no fun. Best to avoid them altogether.
Nina
Do you know the story about when the Spanish arrived in Florida, and they filled their pillows and mattresses with soft, luxurious moss from the trees? The moss they used has been named (in the USA) in their honor. The only problem was that such moss is a natural habitat of chiggers! The story as told in FL does not include how long it took them to connect cause and effect.
Whoah…I had no idea. I can just imagine how that went. When we were in Florida I always thought the worst bugs were the no-see-ums on the beach. I guess it’s similar. Microscopic bugs that bite, and essentially ruin your ability to enjoy the outdoors. I hated those.
Nina
Can’t say I’ve seen anything interesting in the markets because I tested positive for the ‘Rona and have been on house arrest since the 20th … no major symptoms except for slight fever, the headache that WILL NOT GO AWAY, and the loss of my sense of taste. The last one really pisses me off. I work for the DMV, so gee, I wonder where I contracted it …
But I have a story about the French having a great sense of humor … at other’s expense …
In 2013 I went to Paris for 10 days with 2 lovely ladies I worked with, and the three of us rented a flat together. They were a bit older than I, and I would wake up early each morning (or never go to sleep due to pop up night clubs on our block) to roam on my own.
Once I got my bearings, I would go every morning to a bakery (pasterie?) at the end of the block for chocolate croissants. Patrons would go in one end of the shop, que along the glass cases of decadent baked goodies, whereby an attendant on the other side would ask what you wanted, bag it for you and you would pay at the other end of the shop. Just like ordering a sandwich at Subway. Always packed, but very efficient.
One morning I thought, “Aha! I shall order in French!” (because I am that stupid!) and I practiced in my mind what I was going to say. Got in line, and when my pastry “attendant” looked at me, I loudly proclaimed, “Trois chocolate croissants, por favor!” in a mixture of awful high school Spanish and Googled French. Dead silence for about 5 seconds, then the whole shop erupted in laughter.
The attendant, laughing, said “Bueno!” and when I reached the cashier, she handed over my croissants and said “Gracias!” with a big smile on her face. I mumbled “Merci” under my breath and got the hell out of there.
Did I go back? Hell yeah … they were CHOCOLATE croissants, best I’ve ever had. Four more times the shop workers got to laugh and smile each time they saw me. “Bonjour madam! Trois croissants? Es bueno!” I laughed with them … Sometimes, you’ve just got to, and I was happy to have brightened their day.
I’m sure they still talk about the stupid American ordering in French & Spanish …
Oh noooooo….you caught COVID-19. I am so glad to hear your symptoms are relatively mild however. Hopefully that headache goes away soon and you can get back to normal.
LOVED your story about the croissants. I would have kept going back too 🙂
Nina
Chiggers!!
As a child, I recall playing in the fields and getting those things. My Irish Grandmother stood me in the bathtub as I cried because the itch was so bad. She wiped me down with a hot water and bleach solution, rinsed my skin and applied Vaseline thick all over my tummy and legs. We did this 2-3 times a day and couple days and it was gone. I can Only guess that it killed and cleaned out the mites, smothering the remainder with the Vaseline. I will NEVER forget the itch.
Best of luck to you!
Hot water and BLEACH…..yikes! That’s a serious treatment. Not sure I’d do the beach part of it today, but hot water certainly seems to help. What a memory for you!
Nina
I’ve enjoyed visiting grocery stores wherever we lived. Shopping is a common task that crosses all borders, it’s our commonality. I had trouble finding the craziest things in the middle east….Lipton onion soup mix? Not to be had. Or, chopped pimentos. But there were 15 different kinds of hummus at the local convenience store…. my favorite was plain with pomegranate!
Yummmyyy…hummus. I can’t even recall if they sell hummus at my local store (it’s not something I really eat), so I’ll have to go check. I have seen it in bigger stores here.
Nina
I miss grocery stores in other countries. There was one somewhere that was three stories. It was just gorgeous. They had marshmallow fluff in the foreign food section. Couldn’t they have chosen something better to represent the US cuisine? You have to laugh at that.
I grew up in Georgia, land of the chigger. Mom used to dig them out with a needle. Not sure what was worse, the chigger or the cure.
Here’s hoping you get approval for the septic system quickly and that the ditch people are not too difficult.
YES, Marshmallow Fluff…..that is the weirdest thing!! They have it in the “English/American” section of the bigger stores, and I always wonder who uses it and what for. I’d never even heard of it until I moved here.
Nina
Thank you Nina for another of your funny and informative posts.
Once upon a time, I was sent to Siberia on assignment during the time of the CCCR [’78 / ’79]. This is a true story. The small group of we “foreign workers” lived in what they called the “hotel” which was just a done-up part of one of their precast concrete apartment buildings. The hotel furnished cooked meals of what they had. We tried to teach Sveta 1 and Sveta 2 how to cook an American breakfast with small success. We made pictorial menus with translations into po russki, and would then point to what we wanted. The older cook, Sveta 1, always resisted and tried to steer us to a Russian breakfast. There were occasions where we went into the small [at that time} town on the banks of the Ob River with a translator to see what food was available. There were no food markets as we know them. There were separate stores: a bread store [one kind: dark moist, good], a canned goods store [beets, cabbage, fruits], and a root vegetable store and [of course] an alcohol store. Never saw fresh milk, eggs or fruit during the entire time. One weekend morning, early, I heard a violent and regular thumping, and was sure that a pile driving rig was at work outside. Got dressed and went downstairs to see what was going on, closer that I got to the kitchen, the stronger the noice was. I found Sveta 2 [either one would have made a great offensive guard] with her foot on a frozen half of beef chopping out chunks of the cow with an axe. The only way the Russians knew to cook beef was to boil it. Later, I was audited by the IRS who claimed that I did not qualify for the “hardship” exclusion. I said great, let’s get before a judge and I will describe flying in on the airline with the world’s worst safety record, no transportation, and a police state with constant surveillance. I later learned that the soviets were bugging our rooms, not to hear what we were talking about, but what our Russian friends might be saying to us. The IRS backed off. For those who may have watched the Robin Williams movie: Moscow on the Hudson, the scene where Williams sees the incredible variety of food on the shelves of an American supermarket and faints; after a long tour in the CCCR, I got dizzy myself. Thanks again.
WOW what a story. I actually visited the Soviet Union many years ago (around 30 to be exact), so a fair few years after you. I remember those individual “stores” if you could call them that. We were tourists, so we were channeled into tourist hotels and tourist restaurants (no locals at all). It was such a strange experience and possibly the most unusual country I have ever visited. LOVED your story.
Nina
Thanks again for a wonderful post. I was reminded of my bicycle camping trip with my two teens (girl and boy), many years ago. One of the many highlights of biking through the Netherlands, Belgium, and France was shopping in the grocery store nearly every day. What a great experience. The French were incredibly kind to us. One couple even gave us a key to their apt in Paris while they were on vacation on the coast. Viva la France. Love your insights and experiences!
What a lovely memory! And yes, I do find the French incredibly generous and kind. It’s one of the things I love about living here.
Nina
We’ve managed to have a few “adventures”. I still to this day don’t know what I said to the young lady in the “Wendy’s” in Cabo Rojo (P.R.) that resulted in gales of laughter. So much so that her supervisor had to intervene.
Then of course, once upon a time when I was a student in Paris, I had to got to the pharmacy and ask for something for hemorrhoids. Kind of not fun. Then of course, skip ahead about forty years, and I had to endure the same sort of thing in Vienna. Thankfully, it’s a very simple word, and very similar to English. You can’t just wander in and pick something off the shelf. Oh no! You have to ask. Such a drag. I should mention (not that you care or anything) that the products available in Austria for both hemorrhoids as well as cold sores is far superior to anything available over here. Just sayin’.
However, I’m totally thankful that when it came to our last “adventures” in both the Netherlands and Austria, we were not only just renting, but had the help of relocation people and lawyers and all that. I cannot imagine how tough it would be without that kind of help. Well, kind of like that which you are experiencing.
I mean, I did it when I lived in Freiburg as a young student, including sending in a “stool sample”. And yes, I had to look that one up, since I didn’t quite believe what I was reading. But I was only there on a student visa, so no need to go once a year to the MA 35. Magistratsabteilung 35
Took a while to get used to allowing the check out cashier the freedom to bag my groceries after we moved home, as I had become quite used to bagging my own in Europe.
So, all of the crazy stuff in the stores? It’s a “been there, done that” kind of thing. A couple things we really missed though, such as tinned tuna in water (not OIL!) and something called “Miracle Whip”. Had to go to Denmark to get that stuff.
Here in Canada, depending on the province, we are finally introducing beer and wine in the grocery stores. So having it readily available as part of normal grocery shopping in both the Netherlands and Austria was really pretty awesome. Cheap booze too. Me likey.
Good luck with that septic system. It’ll be awesome. Some day.
Great set of memories there. And I agree with you….getting used to the whole “bagging” thing took me a while when I first moved to the USA in my 20’s. Of course, then you get used to it. I could say the same about pumping gas in Oregon (you can’t pump it yourself). All these little differences, they’re all a fun part of the travel/life experience. But having to ask for hemorrhoid cream in different countries….oh dear LOL…
Nina
Great post Nina. I love grocery stores and enjoy checking them out in new areas as we move around. There are a few things that never seem to be stocked in the same spot so we find ourselves going up one aisle and down the other trying to figure out where one might find raisins….snacks, baking, fruit, etc. Mind boggling sometimes. My only memorable French grocery purchase was when I tried to “feel” a peach before buying. Don’t we all touch and squeeze the fruit before buying? The little proprietor was so incensed that he slapped the fruit out of my hand wouldn’t sell me anything at all. I gathered (from my son’s rudimentary french translation) that he was furious with me for besmirching his reputation. He wouldn’t sell anything that wasn’t perfectly ripe, how dare I question that! How dare I!
HA!! That Peach story is hilarious. It’s true that if you ask for fruit from a vendor they will always give you the right “ripeness”. The same is true of bakeries here in France. If you’re buying dessert for the day after tomorrow (say), the baker will tell you if the dessert you’re trying to buy today will hold up that long. If it doesn’t, they simply won’t sell it to you. It would be a terrible blotch on their reputation otherwise.
Nina
YES EVERY MORNING. Our squad did it. 2 tablespoons in the morning and in about a third vinegar and a half glass of water in one hour later. After about 2 days no problem. Takes a little bit to get used to the vinegar….. But it works. Including ticks!
Outstanding, thanks.
Nina
Thanks for another delightful post! It gave me lots of good laughs! Thank you.
We get chiggers in Dallas too. A co-worker told me when I first moved here (in ’93 from So Calif) to put straight bleach on the bites. It really works. Stand in the bath tub and dab it on with a cotton ball and let it air dry. My worst case of chiggers, though, happened a few years ago on our first outing with our motor home. We went to a state park a couple of miles from our home. When we got there we saw signs warning about a chigger infestation. I didn’t think much about it. We thought we knew chiggers being long time Dallas residents! I woke that night with my legs covered in chigger bites. I counted later and there were more than 80! I was in so much pain and itching that I could not sleep. My husband saved my sanity by suggesting i use some antibiotic cream he had with us that had a pain killer in it. I didn’t expect it to help but it did. At least it relieved the pain so I could get some more sleep. I definitely used bleach later when we were back home again.
Thanks again,
Sharon
Nudists??? Pictures, we want pictures of various dangling participles.
Oh, those poor sunflowers look so parched! i can relate, we’re in a severe rough here in Maine too. And chiggers! Thankfully we don’t have them here. The closest thing, I guess, would be black flies in June. If I get a bite on my arm, it swells like a grapefruit.
Grocery stores — I was first introduced to “Ham on the bone” and “turkey on the bone” when we were staying in a timeshare condo (actually, a 4-bedroom villa, for the princely sum of $500 for the week, thanks to the time-share voucher my husband bought from a coworker) in Kilconquhar, Fife, Scotland. Such a revelation, so much better that that awful sliced-diced-and-pressed sandwich stuff you usually find in the stores. One of our local grocery stores sells it that way now.
The same grocery store undertook a let’s-not-close-down-just-move-stuff-around renovation back in February to April. (By late March, all the move-it-around guys were wearing face masks.). Having shopped there for fifteen years, I’m still having trouble finding things. Annoying! At least the milk is still in the same cooler.
And yes, going into a pharmacy in Nice, France, to try to find some lip balm. (I’m a Chapstick-a-Holic, WHY did I not bring a half-dozen sticks with me for an 11-day cruise??). Everything was behind the counter, so no picking out your own product. I pantomimed what I wanted and the clerk produced one tube of the stuff. Not quite what I was used to, but it got me through.
Cheers for septic soon!!
*Severe drought. (Darn autocorrect!)
Not sure if someone else mentioned this but “Marche en arriere” in the context you used was probably interpreted as “I need something that works in the behind”…lol. “Au revers” was probably the term you needed in this context. So funny. Also, FYI, my blog reader just uploaded about 15 of your posts, so something else got unclogged today.
You are spot on. My (very poor) French translation of what I thought would be a fun little comment, was not at all close LOL. As the line goes “i do not think that word means what you think it means” (a Princess Bride classic).
And thanks for letting me know about the photos. I did have a small technical issue with the blog a few days back.
Nina